


Helpful Steps For Making New Friends

by binz



Category: Dexter (TV), Hard Candy (2006)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-01
Updated: 2007-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-07 06:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/binz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Step one: Identify similar interests or hobbies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helpful Steps For Making New Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Written post-season one.

he hears the sirens first. they’re as much a part of the jangle and pulse of his city as the towering abruptness of new condos and high-rise apartments and the tangibility of blue on the horizon and in the air, but here, in this quiet, maintained suburb, they’re unexpected. 

he puts his head down and continues to jog, heart beating faster as he nears the pale green house on the corner with the white trim and mango trees, and it has little to do with the pounding of his feet on the pavement. he’s barely aware of the flex of his leg muscles and the pumping of his arms; his lungs and the huff and draw of breath; the slowly growing ring of sweat around his neck and down his back. there’s a coolness chasing itself over his skin, cutting through the weight and the pull of the still, miami afternoon. 

he doesn’t see her until a minute later, once he starts to round the corner and looks up as the sirens grow louder and flashing lights appear at the end of the street. they’re coming closer, but he doubts that they’re here to see the same person he is; douglas guiame hasn’t made mistakes that many others would notice. 

but it wouldn’t be a good idea to be seen, just in case someone somewhere along the line starts putting pieces together and comes up with a puzzle full of missing people and dear dexter’s smiling face, so he forgoes ducking into the alley to explore the merits of a neighbourhood pedophile’s basement window and carefully installed soundproofing, and passes the entrance with a quick glance for traffic and at the back of the house.

she is ducked low, slipping her small body through the gap between two large, pushed-aside fence boards, nothing but short hair and a hunched back and skinny arms framed by the excesses of an overlarge red sweatshirt. she pulls a messenger bag through the gap after her, and glances up and down the inside of the planks and at the sharp catches of wood. she bows her head, and pulls her hood up over her hair and an mp3 player from her bag. 

when she looks up, headphones in and adolescent detachment and aloofness carefully plastered to her face, their eyes meet, and dexter realises he’s stopped running. her eyes widen and the tightness around her mouth twitches for less than a heartbeat, but it’s enough. it’s written all over her: in her balance and the slope of her shoulders; the tilt of her head and the tension in her neck; tangled in the flutter of her eyelashes and the strength in her hands. he can see it and he _knows_. 

dexter smiles, and she might know too. 

there’s the slam of a car door, siren abruptly turned off, and footsteps on asphalt. dexter starts jogging and she hunches her shoulders, starting forward and staying a few steps behind. when they reach the next street, he turns right and she glances down the left at a bus sign and the bus itself, lumbering into view, before clutching her bag close with one hand, and following after him.


End file.
